Sid and his wife, Orilla, are enjoying their honeymoon when Orilla suddenly asks what is wrong with Sid’s mother. Confused with Orilla’s question given how accommodating his mother has been to his rather sudden bride, Sid asks his wife what she means. Orilla tries to brush the subject off, and the couple begins reveling in their happy and hopefully long-lasting marriage. However, Sid is unable to let their prior subject go and circles back to his mother. He demands to know why Orilla picks on her when she’s been so kind to everyone, but Orilla breaks down in tears and reasons that Sid’s mother has been kind to everyone except Sid’s earnest father. Sid assures her that his mother just loves his father in a different way. When Sid says that his parents were in love before, Orilla laments that her own marriage might stale over time. She and Sid swear to always be in love with each other, clinging to each other and steeping in the romantic atmosphere.

Unfortunately, when Orilla moves in with Sid and his parents, her relationship with her mother-in-law begins to sour. Their interactions are forcefully polite, and the mother realizes that whenever she spends time with Sid, he’s thinking about his wife instead. Accounting for all the sacrifices she has made for him, she grows bitter that Sid hadn’t chosen a harder working or richer wife. Likewise, as Orilla spends time alone and waits for her husband to return from spending time with his mother, she wonders why Sid could not have been born to and serve harder working or more elegant parents. Sid begins feeling the contention between the two women and despite the cheaper cost of living with his parents, finally makes the painstaking decision to move himself and Orilla away.

Soon, their marriage hits several hurdles. Orilla spends money carelessly, then scrutinizes every transaction with the air of an honorably stingy mistress of the household. She also finds it increasingly difficult to bear any thought of Sid’s past lovers. These two points of conflict leave scars in their marriage, but Orilla soon cannot stand any aspect of Sid, from his humor to his hygiene to his dialect. Sid also grows resentful of her, shaming her in private and fawning over her in public. The birth of their children only exacerbates their marital problems, as Sid always acts as an obstacle or refuses to help when Orilla needs to care for the children. By the time she has her fourth child, she discovers her youth is gone and that Sid is likely having an affair.

Eventually, their eldest son brings home a woman Orilla has never met and proclaims he loves her. Orilla instantly hates his bride, Pauline, viewing her as a scheming fiend ready to snatch her precious baby boy. Despite this, she resolves to not embarrass her son. Conversely to Orilla’s opinion of Pauline, Sid showers the girl with flattery and courtesies, causing Orilla to humiliate him in front of Pauline. One night, as Orilla is going to bed, she overhears her son speaking to Pauline. They have the exact conversation Orilla and Sid had about Sid’s mother on their honeymoon night. Alone in her room, having moved out of Sid’s, Orilla cries and feels tempted to fling herself into her husband’s arms again. She doesn’t, but the next morning, a similar thought tries to convince her to visit him at his office. Still, she holds back and reasons that he will come home eventually, and she will sooner or later take him back. They will fall in love once more.